Thursday, August 30, 2012

KillaJoule/KillaCycle team does not quite set 200 miles/hr electric streamline motorcycle land speed record

A couple days ago Eva Hakansson, builder of the KillaJoule and the better half of the KillaCycle team, reported having made an over-200 miles/hr run at Bonneville but achieving an average speed well under 200. As of Tuesday they were intent on making more runs on Wednesday and today, and setting a record over 200 miles/hr. Unfortunately they were well on their way to doing so, only to find halfway through a run that the battery pack had a loose connection when the bike suddenly shut down.

Specifically: --- 214.050 MPH in the flying mile and 216.504 MPH in flying km, but no new record ---

Eva writes that the bike was accelerating great until it suddenly stopped at around 215 miles/hr. The KillaJoule is using the KillaCycle's original 11P110S, total of 1210 A123Systems "M1" cells battery pack. That pack is five years old, has set many world records, etc, and five years of being hauled all over the world has taken its toll.

She also wrote: This year's best offical record will be
191.488 MPH in the flying mile and 191.886 MPH (308.744 km/h) in the
flying kilometer (pending approval by AMA).

Again, the KillaJoule is in a different class from the Lightning or Chip Yates bikes. This record for the KillaJoule is very impressive, but the Lightning and Yates records from last year still stand.